1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is broadly directed to swimming pools of the type having an interior flexible vinyl liner and more specifically to a vinyl liner type pool wherein the supporting wall structure, the coping, the stabilizers, stairs and the like are all of extruded plastic construction.
2. Prior Art
A typical swimming pool construction presently in widespread use includes a plurality of prefabricated panels which are erected upon a ledge formed in the wall of an excavation approximately three feet below the existing grade. The ledge extends around the pool bottom which is provided by shaping the bottom of the excavation to the desired contour to include a deep-end hopper and a shallow-end. The bottom is covered with tamped sand and a flexible plastic liner is positioned thereover with the edge of the liner being gripped between a channel member which extends completely about the top of the panels and a coping mounted on the channel member.
In prior art constructions the practice has been to fabricate the panel sections for the swimming pool wall from wood or metal in large relatively unwieldy sizes. Such sections, typically, might be perhaps three feet high and six to eight feet long and would be framed by heavy lumber, or alternatively by heavy metal flanges. The transportation, handling and installation of such panel sections was always accompanied by considerable difficulty and expense. Furthermore, the leveling of each section was required when the section was placed upon the wall supporting ledge and involved a great deal of care, labor and temporary bracing.
In the evolution of swimming pools of this type the large cumbersome wall panels were eventually replaced by relatively narrow, light, inexpensive extruded aluminum wall panels which were loosely interconnected by tongue and groove connections along the edges of the panels. However, the use of such metallic wall panels which were freely slidable relative to each other required the use of a separate channel member adapted to rest on the ledge extending around the circumference of the pool bottom and a top channel member adapted to fit over the top of the interconnected wall panels to secure the individual panels relative to each other in a stabilized manner. As a result of having to resort to the use of such top and bottom channels the cost of a typical pool installation was substantially increased and considerable design limitations were placed upon the pool construction. The use of such a wall construction for an in-ground vinyl liner type pool further necessitated the use of an extensive ground anchor system for securing the bottom channel members in a stable manner within the excavation and additional earth anchors remote from the pool and connected thereto by horizontally or diagonally extending braces. Finally the use of the bottom channel member necessitated a uniform pool wall height due to the fact that all of the bottom edges of the wall panels had to be supported uniformly in a channel member. As a result the bottom portion of the deep-end of the pool having an optimum slope of approximately 45.degree. left only a relatively small bottom area having the stated maximum depth.